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[tpp]

I did some searching on how people have built Leliana, but most of the posts are quite old and none of them give much context on the rest of the party (which I see on lots of build threads - how can you build just one character in isolation?). Anyway, I'd love to hear some thoughts on how to build Lel into an effective archer for my group.

Context... The Warden in this playthrough is a sword and shield tank with Champion and probably Templar when I get there. Mostly for roleplay reasons, I expect to run the Warden, Leliana, and Wynne pretty much all the time. The fourth could be just about anyone, depending on the quest and my mood. I'll be playing all the DLC's but - being a "good guy" party - I'm not going to do some of the shadier side-quests or the ruthless doublecrosses to squeeze out the maximal XP/Loot from every encounter. I will be taking the Warden into Awakening/Golems/Witch Hunt, so I'll want to keep warrior/rogue tomes for him. I have the Battledress and don't mind using unpatched Repeater Gloves. I won't forsake Valena just to get Far Song, so it will be Marj's Recurve for me. I run the various fixpacks that affect attack speed and such, but don't run respec mods or any mods that alter the "intended mechanics" of the game. I think that covers all the relevant background info?

As far as Leliana's talents go, the following seem like givens to me, though I'm open to objections...

3 - Song of Courage
1 - Dirty Fighting (preassigned)
1 - Below the Belt (preassigned)
4 - Deft Hands
4 - Scattershot
2 - Crippling Shot (preassigned)
4 - Master Archer

That's 19 talents, or level 17, so that leaves maybe 4 more talents available?

So the two obvious, related questions are Dex vs Cun and the second specialization. While I've never had a ranger and am kind of curious to try one, I don't think it fits her personality very well and it would also basically commit the rest of her talents. So I think Ranger is out, unless someone convinces me otherwise. Zev is probably the most common fourth party member, so I don't feel a huge need to take Assassin just for Mark of Death (though the crit chance may be worth it). Duelist would get me some inherent Attack and then some more with Dueling, which should be easy to sustain, for only a single talent. On the other hand, with the Warden providing Rally, Wynne providing Heroic Offense, and Aim/Repeater, maybe Attack isn't such a big issue?

I think I'm leaning towards the Assassin/Cunning route. With Battledress, I only need 20 Str and 29 Dex, and can put everything else into Cunning. (I don't want to commit the Helm of Honnleath or the Harvest Festival Ring to her, as Zev gets excellent use out of those as well.) Then Deadly Strike and Lethality are obviously two of the remaining four talents, and probably Critical Shot and Arrow of Slaying for the other two? And then maybe Mark of Death or Captivating Song at the very end if I squeeze out another level. That seems pretty good, though I'm not sure if that route is going to get me enough Attack.

Thoughts?

[Blazomancer]

With a cunning build, without duelist, from my own experience I can say that you are going to miss every now and then, especially when enemies activate shield cover, and those pesky mages cast heroic aura on themselves. With your warden being in the thick of the battle and you usually at range, you'll probably end up outside the rally zone most of the time. But yes, there's aim and those unpatched repeater gloves; these will certainly make up for the attack deficiency. Even then I'm not sure you can be a reliable mage killer.

With high cunning, I guess anything above improved tools (or even deft hands?) is a waste.

I prefer dualist over assassin. It seems for a cunning ranged attacker, the bonuses from dualist with keen defense is much better than assassin. Ranger is a good choice for people who like to use pets, but I personally don't because I don't like summoning them in each new area, with their long cooldowns, and of course, inability to save tactics is a turn off. If you can get somewhat near level 25, then you can probably consider ranger and get the full tree.

I find an archer playthrough really boring without the dex fix. With the dex fix, an archer is really powerful enough to make do without a little bit of extra dps from a pet. As for the little boost to crit chance from assassin, i guess it's better to bring shale along if you want more crit chance. But then it's just my opinion.

[tpp]

Thanks for the comments!

With high cunning, I guess anything above improved tools (or even deft hands?) is a waste.

That's definitely one of the things I'm wondering about. I already have Level 3 in the path, so that point is sunk. The awkward thing is that Leliana can't really crank Cun until she's covered Str and Dex for gear. I'm sure she'd eventually have enough Cun to open everything with only Level 3, but there are going to be a lot of chests I'll be passing in the meantime. I'm not sure saving the talent is worth the aggravation. Most locked chests just have random vendor junk, but there are just enough worthwhile items locked up that I'd end up backtracking later on. Such a pain...

Assuming Lel is in my party almost all the time, what level should I expect her to hit by the beginning of the endgame? This is only my third playthrough - the first I played blind and missed a bunch of stuff, and the second I intentionally played without doing Warden's Keep and RtO for the challenge. So I don't really know exactly how many talents I should expect to get now that I'm playing almost everything. I'm not going to abuse Elfroots for XP, BTW.

I prefer dualist over assassin. It seems for a cunning ranged attacker, the bonuses from dualist with keen defense is much better than assassin.

I hadn't looked carefully at the to-hit calculations earlier, but after doing so I agree with you. I didn't realize hit rate was a simple "tug of war" mechanic - 20 more attack means adding 20% to your hit rate. You basically increase your DPS by 25% if you were starting from an 80% hit rate. That's pretty huge. I assumed there was a rational function involved where you got relatively less with a heavy investment, but that's not the case. Duelist it is, then.

I find an archer playthrough really boring without the dex fix. With the dex fix, an archer is really powerful enough to make do without a little bit of extra dps from a pet.

Wait... what's the "dex fix" for bows? I only remembered something about dex and daggers, but thought that had been patched long ago. Is this a proper bug, or just one of those mechanical tweaks that some people prefer?

As for the little boost to crit chance from assassin, i guess it's better to bring shale along if you want more crit chance.

Yeah... I'm looking forward to trying that out. But we're only around Level 11-12, so Lel hasn't invested in Aim yet and Shale only has the first two talents in Rock Mastery. So it will take a couple more levels before they can make the most of the synergies there.

[Blazomancer]

Well it's not a bug as far as I know. This fix I was talking about makes all sorts of bows use dex score for damage.
social.bioware.com/project/692/#details
Since you are going for a cunning build, I don't think you'll get most out of this, as your dex will be comparatively lower, and as a side effect, the enemy archers will become very powerful.

And regarding Leliana's level by endgame, around 21-22 may be; but then it depends anyway. I was building a high dex SnS tank warden recently, and as such most of the kills were scored by zev, so by the landsmeet, he was kind of half a level ahead of me.

[tpp]

OK, thanks. I'm sticking with the "game as intended" in this playthrough, at least - so unofficial bug fixes are OK, but intentionally tweaking items and mechanics isn't. I may try some of those mods in future playthroughs.

I'm sure I'm going to have a similar situation as you did with Zevran. He's a ridiculously powerful killer if you have a tank and a bit of crowd control to support him, even without getting the absolute highest end items (Rose's Thorn, Felon's Coat, etc.) He's my go-to choice for the fourth party member, and already accounts for over 15% of my party damage despite him only arriving maybe 2 character levels ago.